Stares at the World

Tagged: Covid-19

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Society

They’re Down Here For Our Souls

A guest post by Blato Oh DeannaSweet DeannaWell, I ain’t down here for your moneyI ain’t down here for your loveI ain’t down here for your love of moneyI’m down here for your soul The above chorus is from a Nick Cave song entitled, Deanna.  Cave describes the song as a sort of ‘devil at the crossroads’ song.  The song is inspired by a childhood friend of his who had an abusive father.  Given that they were eight at the time, it’s not hard to fill in the blanks of what the song is about.  Children don’t think with subtly. ...

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Society

The Problem with Utilitarianism (Featuring Covid-19 Mass Psychosis)

Eliezer Yudkowsky once proposed an interesting through experiment. Imagine the most minor incidence of pain that a human being can experience, which is accretable over multiple people; that is to say, that it’s measurably worse for two people to experience it than just one person. He suggested a stinging dust mote in the eye. Now imagine the worst sort of pain somebody can experience – say, 50 years of torture. Then a hostile, God-like AI gives you a choice: either one person gets tortured for 50 years, or a googolplex of people suffer a dust mote in the eye. Which...